Maddies Manga

A boy gets hit by a car and passes away… only to arrive at his old friend’s house like nothing happened a few years later. While the boy is clearly different now, in the friend’s eye, he’s still that boy she loved just a few years ago… Even if he is a little demonic now.

You can check out a sample of this series for yourself below!

Author

This series was written by Ayumu Hirose.

Genre & Tropes

Horror, mystery, thriller.

Horror – body horror, psychological horror.

Info about this series (ongoing)

There are currently four volumes in Japanese, and one in English.

TL;DR rating

I loved this volume! There were several different elements of horror included, feeling like a perfect package all wrapped up.

Official Synopsis

Asahi is an ordinary girl who shares a small apartment with the boy she grew up with, Minoru. Which wouldn’t be all that strange, except…Minoru died four years ago. The “thing” that occupies Asahi’s apartment is nothing like her childhood friend―it’s inhuman, grotesque, and keeps demanding Asahi’s life at every opportunity. But Asahi doesn’t mind. As long as Minoru is there with her, absolutely nothing else matters…right?

My thoughts on this volume (Slight Spoilers!)

I knew there was something off with Minoru from the moment he appeared on page, but I couldn’t help but grow to enjoy his character regardless. Throughout the volume he continuously changes, never allowing the reader to know what to expect from him. Will he turn into a demonic monster and try to drown the main character, Asahi? Will he act as his old self and request to eat popsicles together? His conforming to his will, something completely unknown to anyone but him, fills the volume with a feeling of constant anxiety. After all, who could guess what someone who just came back from the dead will do next?

While Minoru is the type of scary one may come to expect from a boy seemingly possessed by a demon, Asashi is her own type of frightening. Honestly, the two of them truly belong in a horror story. While the demonic Minoru just appeared in front of Asahi’s house one day, she was somehow able to accept him with open arms—despite the fact he had died in front of her just a few years prior.

Asahi’s willingness to conform to her new reality is both impressive and scary. Her love for Minoru seems to surpass her sense of normalcy and self-preservation, as though he is constantly blatantly coming for her life, she doesn’t seem to blink an eye. This leads to a few rather tense scenes, as she tends to let the boy get very close to achieving his goal.

In my opinion, I believe that Minoru has indeed been possessed by a demon (currently unconfirmed), but is fighting the demon on the inside. This would explain his drastic, and at times rather odd behaviours—asking for her to create a throat for him to enjoy ice cream like he did with her while alive, for example. And to add a reason I find Asahi to be an equally frightening character, she doesn’t even hesitate to shove an arm into his mouth to create it for him upon request.

Asahi’s character is far easier to comprehend than Minoru, in my eyes—she’s heavily grieving the loss of a loved one. She blatantly expresses that she wishes for the Minoru that is currently with her to stay with her forever, so she doesn’t seem to mind all much that he’s changed.

A demonic friend is better than no friend at all, right?